New Cane Quality Assessments to be Implemented by B.S.I.  

Production at the Belize Sugar Industries has been paused due to persistent rainfall, which has led to muddy yields from farmers. But that’s not the only problem. The mill has also been dealing with a fusarium infection affecting northern cane crops and poor road conditions. B.S.I. says a new system is needed to prioritize cane quality over quantity. B.S.I. Communications Director, William Neal, shared more details on the issue.

 

William Neal, Communications Director, B.S.I.

”We’ve had projects of that nature before, we’ve had pre harvesting cane testing pre harvest cane testing and so the farmers are aware of that. We’ll definitely have to get back to our quality system where farmers are paid for quality and that will improve  the way they manage their cane and also the way they harvest their cane because we definitely need to do it on a quality basis. As I said, you can’t tell if cane is ripe just by looking at it. So we’ll have to have a system  that we’ve already demonstrated actually works. There will be a need for that to be put in place to be more beneficial to the farmers themselves. But we have these projects coming up that we’re implementing, like I said, the one for building the adaptive capacity of sugarcane farmers in Northern Belize, which is funded by GCF. And being managed by the Five C’s. So,  those are some important things, but definitely we need an overhaul and a transformation of the delivery system to make sure that we’re bringing the best scheme possible to the mill.”